who's crazy here anyway?

Peace be with you.

On November 17^th, an Eureka Reporter reporter reported: “Lollich (Humboldt County DHHS spokesperson Leslie Lollich) said Thursday that DHHS had not received Proposition 99 funding for three years.” On November 25,2007 the Eureka Reporter reporter reported: “For the past three fiscal years, Humboldt County has not spent a single dollar of the $1.3 million it receives from the 1998 tobacco settlement on tobacco education, prevention or cessation. Instead, the entire sum goes to pay for half the county’s $2.6 million cost for jail medical expenses.” Did we not get it or did we get it and squander it on something else? It seems that yet again Phillip Crandall is concealing the truth.

We already pointed out how Crandall inflated the number of homeless labeled “mentally ill” by 4000%, now it seems he wishes to “penetrate” 30,000 Humboldt County residents with his CalMAP drug program. The Eureka Reporter reporter reported May 18, 2007, “Even at the 15.38 percent penetration rate for adults aged 26-59 — compared to statewide penetration of 10.12 percent — that’s 85 percent not being served. Crandall calls the numbers ‘impressive, but not enough.’”

Who are these 30,000 Medi-Cal-eligible people in Humboldt County Crandall noted as not being penetrated by the Mental Health Department? The may 18th article stated, “Deichert (Kirsten Deichert, spokesperson for the California Department of Mental Health.) noted that in the most recently posted prevalence rates of mental illness, Humboldt County had 9.31 percent of its population at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level with penetration rates of 10.7 percent.” But 30,000 people represent 23.38% of our county’s population, not 9.31%. So If 11,945 people are "at or below 200% of the federal poverty level" who are other 18,055 Humboldt citizens Crandall is refering to? Is poverty or near poverty a mental illness now?

None of Crandall’s numbers add up. It is like he came up with an answer first and then added the equation. The excuse he gave me once at a meeting at the Wharfinger for how he came up with the ridiculously inflated MHSA CSS plan homeless mentally ill numbers was he just guessed. With him looking to “impress” his “penetration” to a quarter of Humboldt County residents I think what we really need to ask is “who's crazy here anyway?” Crandall seems the abnormal one here, even according to his numbers.

By now we’ve all heard of Dr. Theodore Utecht’s allegation “he has been asked to alter a diagnosis for coding purposes so that ‘(the county) can get paid.’” Utecht claims “‘hundreds of thousands of dollars billed this way’ over a period of four years.” Calling people crazy when their not is not only fraud, but when done to the individual can have two life scarring repercussions. The first is that once a “mental disorder” is placed on your record the best you can hope for ever again is to be a mental disorder in remission. The second is that if you are labeled mentally ill and a medi-cal recipient you are treated according to a flow chart of treatment, called CalMAP, that makes atypical-anti-psychotics the first line.

I followed a person through Sempervirens once so it comes as no surprise to me that, with Crandall’s fraudulent numbers of mentally ill, Crandall’s redirecting education funds to mental health, the sudden quitting of three mental health directors in a year, and the phenomenal budget growth in Humboldt County’s MH department, Sempervirens county nut house is trying to misdiagnose 30,000 of you. Bush has plans to mental health test every one in America and Crandall wants to dope a quarter of them.

love eternal
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